Halfway Through Final Fantasy XV

Based on hours played and chapter, I’m about halfway through FFXV now. Since the game just told me I’ll be losing access to the open world for a while, I figured this was as good a time as any to give my impressions on that open world.

FFXV feels a lot like FFXII (which I love), with a lot of Uncharted and a dash of GTA mixed in. Some of the cinematic exploration reminds me very strongly of Uncharted, which is a good thing since that game had excellent presentation. The flow of combat also feels similar at times, where things can be quite chaotic than suddenly end. Plus the banter is fantastic, and with a fairly consistent party of four there’s a lot of room for character development there.

The GTA aspect is basically just that there’s a map with objectives on it, and you often have to pay attention to roads instead of going directly to them in a line.

The one aspect of FFXII I never loved is the chaotic combat, because I’m actually quite terrible at it. Sometimes I’d just get my butt kicked by a fight and have to use a dozen consumables to survive, or just spam some cheesy abilities. My only real complaint about FFXV so far is that it feels exactly the same in this regard. It doesn’t help that the camera is awful in combat, particularly if you’re fighting in the woods. I don’t particularly like the targeting, and I generally have no idea why I’m winning or losing a fight.

That said, this really only applies to packs of wandering monsters. Whenever you’re fighting set pieces against human troops, those fights are amazingly fun. Warp striking never gets old, and those fights set you up perfectly for it. I’ve also started getting better about magic (now that I realized you can mix items in for cool effects, like self healing of max HP).

Combat complaints aside, I love this game. The presentation is amazing, the characters are great, and I’m interested in where the plot is going. I do have one worry about the plot, which is that the party seems way too easily bamboozled repeatedly, but I guess I’ll see if it actually plays out that way. If I end up liking this game as much as FFXII, that will definitely be a win for me.